Were Watford right in selling Forestieri?

Many Watford fans see the decision to sell Fernando Forestieri as an upsetting one, but, were Watford correct to sell the Argentinian, or would it have been beneficial to keep the forward?

He is one of the most skilful players that I have seen at Vicarage Road for some time. Some of the skills he performed were mind-blowing and he didn’t get the name ‘Fessi’ for nothing. If you take a look at Watford’s squad today, there aren’t many players that can match the skills he could do. There are a few skilled players like Jurado and Ighalo, but none can stand up to the skills that Fessi provided.

“Ohh Forestieriii!” rung out from the Rookery faithful every single game. He was a massive fan favourite due to his intense passion for the game and for the club, he also loved the fans, commenting on his affection for them on multiple occasions. You can see why his sale sent many Hornets fans into mourning. To this day, it still makes people upset watching him perform fantastically for Sheffield Wednesday, rightly so. When Watford fans found out that he still wore his Watford shin pads, it sent many Watford fans back to the grieving state knowing he still loved the club.

Depth seems to be something Watford are struggling with at the moment in the striker’s department, with Deeney adopting more of a central attacking midfield role this season. So, surely Forestieri would have added to the depth, wouldn’t he? With Ighalo’s form seeming to drop recently with only 1 goal in his previous 8 games, Forestieri would be in line for a start to try and shake things up, but Watford has no other options up front except Oulare who doesn’t seem to fit Quique’s system. Fernando seems as if he would be a perfect fit in Quique’s starting XI, so this makes his sale seem like a strange one.

On Fernando’s day, he would terrorise defences, with plenty of examples including his performance against Reading last season where he scored two or during the 2013/14 season where he tormented Demichelis during the FA Cup tie against Manchester City. Keeping him at least until January could’ve shown whether he could torture Premier League defences or not and us Watford fans maybe could’ve handled his sale in January better knowing he couldn’t make the step up.

However, there are some reasons that justify Fernando’s sale. His theatrics on the pitch whenever he was tackled annoyed many fans and not just the away ones. Simulation is heavily frowned upon in today’s game but seems to be a massive part of it, and Fernando saw this and tried to capitalise, often failing. He has continued to dive at Sheffield Wednesday, which has earned him two red cards during his stint at the club (although one of them was unjustified). He has earned a reputation as a diver which has now convinced referees that whenever he goes down that it isn’t legitimate.

I previously mentioned how on his day he would be superb, but the problem with this is that his day doesn’t come often enough. He was very inconsistent during his time at Watford. One day he could be the best player to play in the sacred yellow and black, but on other days, he would look Sunday league standard.

All in all, Forestieri was and still is a fantastically talented player, but a few things need to be tweaked in his game in order to be the Premier League player all of us Watford fans know he could be. He needs to cut out the simulation and become consistent and he will be at a Premier League club in no time.